For the first time in history, a former president of the United States today sat in the dock in a criminal trial. With his characteristic blue suit and red tie, Donald Trump appeared early in the morning in the criminal court of New York, south of Manhattan, to face the first of the four trials he has pending this election year. Upon his arrival at the court, minutes before sitting before Judge Juan Merchan, he insisted before the cameras in his story: that he is a victim of “political persecution” and that the process is an “attack against America” ??promoted by the president and his rival in the November elections, Joe Biden.
However, in this state case, the federal administration has nothing to do with it. The magnate is accused of 34 crimes related to the document falsification scheme that he created to bribe porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. In the middle of the election campaign, he bought her silence about an extramarital relationship they had had a decade ago, and justified the payments as part of your legal expenses. The accusation for document falsification – presented a year ago by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg – is aggravated by an alleged violation of the electoral campaign financing laws, since the commission of the crime served to hide relevant data from the American people about the candidate.
A conviction could lead the Republican candidate to spend a decade in prison before the November presidential elections, which would create an unprecedented situation that, however, would not prevent him from running for office, since no article of the Constitution prohibits it. . Each of the 34 crimes is punishable by a maximum of four years in prison, and several jurists agree that, if found guilty, Trump could face at least a decade behind bars. The maximum sentence could be 20 years, the limit established in New York State for this class of crimes (Class E).
Almost a month later than planned, due to the postponement of the magistrate at the request of the defense, the trial finally began today with the selection of the jury, which will be made up of 12 anonymous citizens of New York and six alternates. Today a hundred candidates were summoned (out of a total of 500), who had to answer 42 questions designed to verify their impartiality regarding the former president. Trump’s defense has argued that a fair trial is impossible in Manhattan, since it is a district with a very large Democratic majority.
This process will last between one and two weeks, and the former president’s defense has already announced that it intends to attend all the hearings. Then the arguments of the parties and the questionnaires to witnesses will begin, and the jury’s verdict is expected between the end of May and the beginning of June – shortly before the Republican National Convention, in July, which will formally nominate Trump for the elections of November-.
Among the witnesses that the prosecution plans to bring to testify, his former lawyer Michael Cohen will be the most decisive. In 2016, he transferred $130,000 to Daniels, and Trump later reimbursed him, recording the payment as “legal expenses” of the Trump Organization. Cohen, now converted into an enemy of the magnate, acknowledged the existence of that payment and pleaded guilty to violating the electoral campaign financing law. He is also scheduled to testify to the actress with whom Trump denies having had a relationship in 2006, Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels.
In the weeks prior to the trial, and despite the fact that Judge Merchán had imposed a gag order on Trump for his repeated comments about it, the magnate published a series of messages on Truth Social disqualifying Cohen and Clifford, as well as the judge. and to the prosecutor. The latter, Alvin Bragg, asked Judge Merchan at the beginning of the session to penalize Trump with a fine of $3,000 for violating the gag order by attacking witnesses.
During the two months that the trial is expected to last, Trump will continue using the court halls and social networks to influence his victimist campaign. “This is a political persecution, a persecution like never before: it is an assault on America, and that is why I am proud to be here. This is an assault against our country, which is failing,” he stated upon his arrival at the court; “Witch hunt!” He published his Truth Social account when he was already before Judge Merchán.
At the same time that this historic criminal trial progresses, the former president is managing to postpone the other three that are pending this year. In Washington, he is accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 elections; in Georgia, for his attempt to manipulate the vote count in that key state; and in Florida, for taking and retaining more than a hundred classified documents in his private Mar-a-Lago club, in Palm Beach, when leaving the White House in 2021.
At the moment, none of these criminal proceedings seem to be going to hinder his path back to the White House. According to the latest polls, he already leads Biden in six of the seven states considered key in these elections. However, the polls also show that a criminal conviction, the first for a former president in the country’s history, could take its toll heading into November.
